Photo: Unsplash
Gorilla strikes on the chest reliably indicate the size of the individual’s body.
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A gorilla hitting itself in the chest is one of the most symbolic sounds in the animal kingdom. Until now, it was not clear what information the gorillas conveyed by exhibiting this behavior.
German scientists have found that male gorillas straighten their backs while tapping on their chest to give their rivals information about their real size. Reported by the news agency NYP.
In this case, gorillas usually stand on two legs and quickly beat themselves in the chest with folded hands.
“The beating to the chest is a unique sound because it is not a vocalization like the croaking of a frog, but rather a form of gestural communication that can be seen and heard. The sound of a drumbeat can be heard at a distance of more than one kilometer, ”the article says.
Studying the behavior of animals, scientists have come to the conclusion that the strikes of gorillas on the chest reliably indicate the size of the body of an individual beating itself in the chest. And body size, in turn, indicates the “competitiveness of gorillas.”
“We were able to show that body size is encoded in the sounds of chest punching,” said Edward Wright, lead study author at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
In their study, the researchers analyzed recordings of the sound of striking the chest of gorillas from Rwanda. It turned out that the duration and number of beats are not related to the size of the males, but the average peak frequency reflects it. The larger the gorilla, the lower the frequency of the sound.
Low-frequency sounds spread further than high-frequency sounds, which means that a large male can be heard from afar. Smaller males understand that a large rival is very close and can decide whether to fight a rival or not.
Recall that in Nigeria, for the first time in many years, the photo got the rarest gorillas in the world with cubs.
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